by Kate F.
The commercial advertising the beautiful environment of our Great Lakes State has emblazoned across millions of television screens in this country. The tag line “Pure Michigan” is one that Michiganders use often to describe our beloved home. However, despite the reputation of preserving and protecting nature that “Pure Michigan” implies, our state has seen an increase in foreign waste in our landfills. These locations, the chief among them being Canada, Ohio, and Indiana, are paying money to dump their trash in Michigan as opposed to their own landfills.
In the year 2003, the closing of the Toronto landfill resulted in the city having to decide what they would do with their waste. Due to Michigan’s waste dumping fee being the lowest in the region, Toronto and other cities in Ontario began sending their trash to our landfills. From that point on, Ontario was shipping about 1.5 million tons of municipal trash to Michigan every year in addition to all of the trash being sent from other states and the Canadian private sector. Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow fought for an agreement that would eliminate the waste being shipped over the border from Ontario into Michigan, but, while they managed a tremendous victory, there is still much work to be done. The agreement only covered city trash, which equated to about 40% of all trash being sent from Canada into Michigan. This means that there is still a large percentage of Canadian waste coming over into our state. In fact, while the citizens of Michigan are actually decreasing the amount of trash they dispose of in landfills, our total garbage disposal actually increased due to waste coming in from Canada and other states. In 2013, Michigan landfills accepted 7,681,315 cubic yards of waste from Canada alone. That’s 17% of all garbage disposed of in Michigan, and on top of the 6% from other states, meaning that 23% of all waste in Michigan isn’t even ours.
These statistics are pretty alarming. This increase in waste poses serious health and safety issues for Michigan residents in addition to the clear detrimental effects to our beautiful environment. Increased waste subsequently increases the risk for water contamination, especially due to the large amount of waste from outside of the state, which may contain waste that was banned in Michigan. Shipments from Canada have even included harmful waste such as “non-decontaminated medical waste, radioactive medical waste, and marijuana.” Transportation is affected greatly as well, as the movement of waste into Michigan results in “increased pollution, noise, and traffic, as well as the deterioration of roadways.”
A great majority of this foreign waste is being sent to Wayne County, which is the area that I call home. In 2013, 2,543,320 cubic yards of waste was sent into Wayne County by Canada, and, combined with the trash sent in from other states, made for a total of 2,880,641 cubic yards in out-of-state garbage in our local landfills. This could have severe effects on our water and the surrounding environment. Also, the roadways in the area deteriorate much faster due to the trucks that bring in all of that garbage. The roads have to be repaired on the citizens’ tax dollars even more frequently than other roads in Michigan, and they were already needing constant attention due to whether conditions. Due to this being a local issue back home and my close proximity to the Arbor Hills Landfill in Northville, this is an issue that I would like to delve into.
References
In the year 2003, the closing of the Toronto landfill resulted in the city having to decide what they would do with their waste. Due to Michigan’s waste dumping fee being the lowest in the region, Toronto and other cities in Ontario began sending their trash to our landfills. From that point on, Ontario was shipping about 1.5 million tons of municipal trash to Michigan every year in addition to all of the trash being sent from other states and the Canadian private sector. Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow fought for an agreement that would eliminate the waste being shipped over the border from Ontario into Michigan, but, while they managed a tremendous victory, there is still much work to be done. The agreement only covered city trash, which equated to about 40% of all trash being sent from Canada into Michigan. This means that there is still a large percentage of Canadian waste coming over into our state. In fact, while the citizens of Michigan are actually decreasing the amount of trash they dispose of in landfills, our total garbage disposal actually increased due to waste coming in from Canada and other states. In 2013, Michigan landfills accepted 7,681,315 cubic yards of waste from Canada alone. That’s 17% of all garbage disposed of in Michigan, and on top of the 6% from other states, meaning that 23% of all waste in Michigan isn’t even ours.
These statistics are pretty alarming. This increase in waste poses serious health and safety issues for Michigan residents in addition to the clear detrimental effects to our beautiful environment. Increased waste subsequently increases the risk for water contamination, especially due to the large amount of waste from outside of the state, which may contain waste that was banned in Michigan. Shipments from Canada have even included harmful waste such as “non-decontaminated medical waste, radioactive medical waste, and marijuana.” Transportation is affected greatly as well, as the movement of waste into Michigan results in “increased pollution, noise, and traffic, as well as the deterioration of roadways.”
A great majority of this foreign waste is being sent to Wayne County, which is the area that I call home. In 2013, 2,543,320 cubic yards of waste was sent into Wayne County by Canada, and, combined with the trash sent in from other states, made for a total of 2,880,641 cubic yards in out-of-state garbage in our local landfills. This could have severe effects on our water and the surrounding environment. Also, the roadways in the area deteriorate much faster due to the trucks that bring in all of that garbage. The roads have to be repaired on the citizens’ tax dollars even more frequently than other roads in Michigan, and they were already needing constant attention due to whether conditions. Due to this being a local issue back home and my close proximity to the Arbor Hills Landfill in Northville, this is an issue that I would like to delve into.
References
- Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. “Report of Solid Waste Landfilled in Michigan October 1, 2012 – September 30, 2013.” Lansing, MI. 2014. 60.
- Senator Debbie Stabenow. “Canadian Trash.” Accessed February 17, 2014. http://www.stabenow.senate.gov/?p=issue&id=71.
- Yahoo. “Michigan: The Waste and Landfill State.” Accessed February 17, 2014. http://voices.yahoo.com/michigan-waste-landfill-state-103987.html.